


Camera Shy

by Battydings



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Alternate Universe, Camgirl, Dark, Dark Erik, Horror, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, One Shot, Twisted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29290260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Battydings/pseuds/Battydings
Summary: An AU in which Christine is a camgirl and Erik is her obsessed follower. (One shot)Leroux based.
Comments: 49
Kudos: 41





	Camera Shy

**Author's Note:**

> This is unlike anything I have ever written. It is not romantic, it is dark and twisted.  
> Very much true crime inspired.

His requests, at first, had been normal enough. There was nothing strange or out of the ordinary about this particular follower, aside from his noticeable generosity or the polite way in which he typed his wishes, he used proper punctuation and complete sentences. His phrases almost seemed from another era altogether, antiquated and outdated. She found it was refreshing, his ‘please and thank you’ etiquette.

She did not know his name real, only that is online handle was DonJuan1910. Everyone who entered her cam room went under an assumed alias and it wasn’t like she gave hers out either. If she thought too hard on the subject, she would certainly find it perverse to have assumed the name of a childhood tale her deceased father enjoyed regaling around the campfire, so she never let her mind go there. ‘Lotte’ was the first and only name that would come to mind when she began this niche career, everything else seemed too…fake, too contrived, too plasticine.

Most of the men who came into her room usually asked to see more of her skin, they loved when she batted her big blue eyes in the camera and licked her pink lips. Tokens would rain into her account for sexual acts, those made the most money. Stripteases were popular, but big spenders could pay for even more.

Self-gratification had become an invaluable skill, but even more-so was the ability to know the proper angles, the lighting. Sometimes she enjoyed herself, achieving her orgasm, with quivering thighs and breathy sighs, to the awaiting eyes of the strangers behind their bright screens. They would congratulate each other and thank the donor who had issued the tokens for such an act.

Most times she found acting to be an even greater asset. The days when she was tired, or simply not in the mood…it was a job, after all. It became quite easy to put on a show, to twitch her toes and moan theatrically. Nobody could tell the difference, not even her own boyfriend.

DonJuan1910 was different. He struck her as a man who simply needed company. Some men came to the cam rooms looking for a temporary surrogate girlfriend, to play the part of a woman who enjoyed their company, to listen to their lonely woes and coddle them over the camera. He seemed to fall under this category.

The other followers had grown upset with the gentle acts he asked her to perform, some bordering on the side of the banal. He wanted her to ask him how his day was, to blow kisses at the screen and innocently flirt, to giggle and blush and brush her hair.

The first night he logged into her chatroom, he donated an expensive number of tokens and requested she sing the birthday song.

**DonJuan1910:** It is my birthday, please, sing for me. It would mean the world to me.

It struck her as pitiful, but she complied and sang her the sweetest, sultriest rendition of the song she could muster.

**DonJuan1910:** You have the voice of angel, thank you.

As a bid to have him return she said, “If you come back tomorrow night, Don Juan, we can share a bottle of wine.”

The following night he returned, showering the chatroom with tokens as she uncorked a bottle of red wine and poured herself a glass.

**DonJuan1910:** Please, I would very much enjoy if you would sip some wine, look into the camera and smile as though it is the most delicious thing you have ever tasted.

Tokens fell into her account, she did as he requested, making an exaggerated display of her enjoyment of the wine, regardless of its cheap quality. It burned on its way down her esophagus, and yet, she said ‘Mmm’ into the camera and smiled just for his generosity.

**DonJuan1910:** You are so beautiful. Thank you.

She had a number of big donors in her room, followers who regularly dropped large sums of tokens for her more explicit acts, but he began to outcompete them for the more trivial actions. He enjoyed watching her eat. It didn’t matter what the food was, he requested this often. Sometimes she wondered if he was eating on the other side of the screen. Did he simply yearn for a dinner companion? _He must be terribly lonely_ , she thought.

There were times when his donations were outcompeted by a thirsty watcher, eager to see her perform some penetrative act. While the rest of her clients would type in their excitement or give the user who paid for the show a digital slap on the back, DonJuan1910 would remain silent. It almost seemed as though he were sulking, seething hotly somewhere, behind miles of fiberoptic cable and webservers.

She began to lose some of her most avid clients, some who had entered her chatroom regularly for years were vanishing. It would have concerned her, had she not received such generous donations from the one who was always waiting when she logged in each time.

Things began to change when she starting joining him in private rooms. His requests for the innocuous became so specific that they bordered on personal.

**DonJuan1910:** Please, look into the screen and tell me how you adore my face. Tell me it is a beautiful face.

Turning her sapphire eyes towards the screen, she fluttered her lashes in the manner she knew made her look innocent, yet seductive.

“I love your face, yours is the most beautiful face I have ever seen.”, she lied convincingly.

She had no idea of knowing what his face was like, it was probably quite mediocre, but as her computer began to ding from the incoming tokens alert she smiled and continued to fawn over how ‘gorgeous’ she believed he was.

**DonJuan1910:** Please, touch your lips and tell me how much you wish to kiss my face. Tell me you would kiss it with love.

Placing her fingers upon her lips, she did as she asked, “I would love to kiss your face.”, she cooed.

As her frequent fans seemed to disappear out of thin air over the course of a month, she found herself depending more and more on the munificent donations of her peculiar client. Her time with him in the private room began to increase until he was her sole provider.

With increased time together online, he began to tell her more about himself while she continued to keep her personal details tucked secretly away. Music was his passion, he chatted about it frequently and requests for her singing became commonplace. He sounded intelligent, but exceptionally isolated.

It felt financially risky to have one client, but he paid so well that she shoved her fretful fears aside.

When she informed her boyfriend of the change, he was exceedingly uncomfortable with the arrangement. He hadn’t exactly been a fan of her occupation to begin with, but he never entreated her to stop. It was important for her to finish school and this ensured she made more than enough money to do that while leaving time to study.

“I don’t like this, Christine. It’s like you’re having a relationship with the guy.”, her boyfriend grumbled one night over homemade dinner in her apartment.

She rolled her eyes. “Raoul, you’re always jealous. I don’t even know his name. He’s been very respectful, and I’ve been able to put money into savings.”

“I still don’t like it. Somehow it feels different.”, he replied, then with furrowed brows he said, “I want you to stop, Christine. I’ll take care of you until you get a better job. You have to choose whether you want me or this job more. I don’t think I can go on with you entertaining other men like this anymore.”

They had finished their evening in stony silence after the ultimatum was placed upon the table. Raoul had been her childhood sweetheart, they had dated for years, she was certain she loved him, that he was the marrying type…the answer seemed obvious.

The following night, DonJuan1910 was waiting for her when she logged in. He wanted to hear about her day, their time online together always started this way, with trite conversation. His responses were always typed while she spoke directly into the screen. The questions he asked her were generalized which allowed for the omission of personal details.

**DonJuan1910:** You are distressed.

How could he tell? Was she losing her knack for acting?

Taking a deep breath, she looked into the camera and frowned slightly.

“This will probably be the last time we speak”, she said.

**DonJuan1910:** Why?

Something about the quick and direct nature of his response gave her the sense that he was panicked behind the screen. After all, she had essentially become his internet girlfriend for a handful of months. As their time together had grown, she knew he had become attached to an unhealthy degree.

_He’s going to be so lonely,_ she thought sadly.

“I suppose there is no harm in telling you this now,” she sighed, “In my real life I have a boyfriend…he doesn’t want me to do the cam work anymore.”

He immediately logged off and something strange occurred, tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Shaking away the ridiculous reaction she was having for a total stranger online, she turned off the webcam and went to bed with sad images of a broken, isolated man somewhere in the world who just had his feelings hurt by a camgirl.

That night she went out to a club with her best friend, Meg, and drank a significant number of Appletini’s, enough to make her forget the disappointment of a stranger she had never met. While her ears were blasted with the obnoxious scream and bump of House music, she danced and tried to shake off her own bizarre feelings of loss.

Raoul did not contact her the following day and he refused to answer her calls.

“This is incredibly frustrating, Raoul.”, she snapped into the phone as she left her recorded voicemail, “It’s been a whole day, where---”

“If you’re satisfied with your message, press 1. If you’re not and want to re-record, press 2. If you want to delete and start over, press 3.”, came a digital response over the voicemail system, essentially interrupting her message mid-sentence.

Letting out a frustrated growl she tossed her phone onto the couch. She refused to leave another message and, instead, she stewed for a few more hours until she dozed off.

An energetic knock broke her out of her heavy, depressed slumber.

Glancing at the clock on her wall, it was nearing midnight. Something felt off…

Looking through the spyglass in her door, she saw two uniformed police officers. A knot began to coil in her stomach as she opened the door, but she considered the possibility that, perhaps, they simply had the wrong apartment.

“Christine Daaé?”, the female officer asked as she peeked her face out the partially open door.

“That’s me.”, she nervously replied. “Is something wrong?”

“We are told you are in a relationship with a Raoul De Changy?”, the officer responded.

“He’s my boyfriend…”, she was confused. “Did something happen?”

A hiss came over the officer’s radio, followed by a short, incoherent string of garbled communication what she could not make out.

“Raoul De Changy died last night, Miss Daaé.”, the second officer said. His eyes looked sympathetic, but also suspicious. “It was ruled as a homicide.”

The world spun around her at a thousand miles an hour and she gripped the door to steady herself. It felt as though she were standing on a ship that had just been thrust into a raging hurricane. She was certain she was going to vomit right there on her doorstep, in front of these blue-clad officers.

“Who killed him?”, she whispered, her eyes shut against the spell of nausea and sorrow that threatened to consume her.

“We don’t know,”, the female officer replied. “We have some questions.”

She invited them into her apartment, and, over the course of an hour, they asked her questions. Where was she last night? Did they have any relationship issues? Was there anyone who would have wanted to hurt Raoul? Did he have any enemies? Would she be willing to submit a DNA test?

Every answer she gave made her feel more hollowed inside. Her mind felt numb, dull, broken by the trauma of the news.

They took her contact information for Meg, to corroborate her alibi for the previous night.

The officers thanked her for her time, rose to their feet and exited her apartment as though it was business as usual. Once they were gone, she allowed herself to break apart into a thousand pieces on the floor of her apartment. She cried so hard that she could no longer tell whether the wetness upon her face was, tears, drool, or snot. Nothing mattered in the moment except her body’s need to exercise the immense despair which now inhabited her.

In the morning she woke from the hardwood floor, a shell of a person, brittle with grief. School seemed like it was in an alternate dimension and she suddenly could not fathom why she placed such importance in it, not when loss seemed so much more significant in comparison. Still, she forced herself into fresh clothing and left her apartment for class.

A large bouquet of dark red roses was sitting upon her doorstep when she returned home hours later. It lacked a card. Did someone send this in sympathy for her loss? Roses seemed an inappropriate choice of flower.

Regardless, she brought them inside and put them in water. They sat upon her counter for a week, until the petals began to wilt and fall, leaving nothing but littered petals everywhere. It seemed appropriate for how she felt inside, messy and dead.

When she returned home from Raoul’s funeral, there was another anonymously delivered bouquet of red roses sitting on her faded doormat.

She brought them inside.

Two months slipped past, and the pain of her loss began to ebb away. She felt like she wanted to clutch onto it and hold it close, she wanted to climb into that grief and live there forever, afraid that letting it go meant letting go of Raoul, but she had to move forward.

The funds in her savings were disappearing and she had not searched for an alternative job.

It was with a great amount of reluctance that she logged into her Cam room one night and began to pick up where she left off.

To her surprise, he was there shortly after, almost as if he was waiting patiently for her this entire time. He was the only person in the chatroom.

**DonJuan1910:** You have returned to me. You look so beautiful.

She hadn’t realized how starved for kind words she had been these past couple of months, how lonely and lost she had felt until he issued that typed greeting. Raoul’s family had grown cold to her, they had never cared for her in the first place, and she had so very few friends. A choked sob escaped her throat, and she began to cry, apologizing profusely to him.

**DonJuan1910:** Even when you cry, you are so pretty, but it gives me great pain to see you cry. Tell me what is wrong.

It wasn’t safe to talk about her private life, but she needed to let out her sorrow somehow. She closed her eyes and began to tell him how scared and isolated she had been since the death of her boyfriend. His responses were gentle, sympathetic, she found that she held onto each one as if they were precious things.

**DonJuan1910:** I would give the world to see you smile again.

Thus, they began to resume their unusual professional relationship. He paid enough to keep her secluded in a private chat room. It was the easiest money she had ever made. He spoke to her as though he were her devoted lover while she went about mundane tasks, folding laundry, brushing her teeth, studying for exams, applying makeup while he placed large quantities of tokens into her account. He explained that he enjoyed the illusion of domesticated bliss. 

During these times she wondered what he looked like, what he sounded like, she fancied herself somewhat smitten with who he was online, but surely a man so kind had reasons for utilizing the services of a cam site. Was he socially awkward? Insecure?

They carried on this way until one fateful night he had a new request.

**DonJuan1910:** Please, I wish to see you.

She looked to ensure her camera was working properly. “My camera should be on; can you not see me?”

**DonJuan1910:** No, my dear. I wish to see more of you. Please, take off your blouse.

He had never asked to see her naked before now, and she found this change to be frightening and thrilling. It had been months since Raoul’s death, months since she had any real physical contact with another human being. She had isolated herself from the world as she curled into her cocoon of sadness. Her soul was starved for connection, for recognition, for tenderness.

The alert on her computer indicated a transfer of tokens and she wordlessly pulled her shirt over her head to expose her breasts to the chilled air. Feeling more alive than she had in a while, knowing this was only a job, but still leaning into the small moment of intimacy with another human being.

**DonJuan1910:** You are magnificent. Please, remove your trousers.

She found his wording for everything to be an odd quirk. A t-shirt was ‘a blouse’, blue jeans were ‘trousers’. The way he spoke was so formal and rigid. 

When she sat on her bed before the camera, fully naked as she had done so numerous times in the past, it felt different, more raw. It no longer felt like a job, it felt so real that it was overwhelming. The desire to see him began to crystalize in her mind, would they be similar age? What color were his eyes? Was he naked now too?

Licking her lips to moisten them. Suddenly her entire life felt a million miles away. She forgot about Raoul and her grief, about her father and his last painful days on earth, about the aching loneliness that had settled into her bones these past couple of months. In a moment, she felt less like the camgirl and more like the lonely client who needed company.

She looked into the camera and asked, “Are you naked too?”

**DonJuan1910:** If I answer in the affirmative, will you be upset?

A blush bloomed in her cheeks as she coyly looked away while turning her eyes from the camera. She felt so ridiculous, turning crimson over a man she didn’t even really know, only snippets of.

**DonJuan1910:** Do you blush for me?

“Yes.”, she breathed, then confessed, “This just feels different than, I’m used to. More intimate, I guess.”

She felt out of her depth, it reminded her a first time with a real life partner, how self-consciousness and desire come together to perform a perfect tango.

**DonJuan1910:** It is different, because I am different.

“You have been very kind.”, she replied.

**DonJuan1910:** Please. Touch yourself. I want you to tell me how you feel.

She could almost hear the aching longing forming the black text upon her screen. As her hands began to run down the length of her body, she wondered what his hands felt like, would he be gentle? Rough? Would they shake from inexperience or roam with confidence? What was he like in real life?

The sound of the tokens being transferred on her computer reminded her this was just a gig, but it still felt like more.

“I’m soft and warm, but my nipples tingle because it’s cold in my room.”

**DonJuan1910:** If I was there, I would ensure you were warm. Tell me you wish it was my hands upon you.

“I do, I do wish it was your hands upon me.”, she said as her fingers began to drift along her skin, skirting along her belly and downward. The room felt as though it were warming, the blood was thrumming hotly in her veins.

Her fingers hovered between her thighs. She could feel the heat radiating from her own body now. It had been months since she had given herself pleasure. Once or twice, she had gone through the motions, but stopped halfway when depression and guilt took over.

**DonJuan1910:** Please, do not stop. Show me where you would have me touch you.

Laying back she presented her spread legs to the camera, while keeping an eye on the bright screen of the computer. The fingers of her right hand fell into a comfortable, familiar position and began to furiously rub.

She allowed herself to jump into the vortex pleasure, as her breaths came out in the form of throaty moans and kitten mews.

“Are you touching yourself?”, she breathed in a voice saturated with desire.

**DonJuan1910:** I am, I cannot help it. I am looking at the most beautiful woman.

Her back arched as she fought for more, overcome by this sudden sense of connection she was having with another soul. God, it had been too long…

**DonJuan1910:** Tell me you are my good wife, my good living wife.

Her hand stopped its activity as she was thrown off by the bizarre request. He wanted to roleplay…she could do that.

“I’m your good, living wife.”, she said into the camera as her fingers began to circle and shake once more.

**DonJuan1910:** I want my wife to tell me how handsome I am.

Her fingers moved faster, “You are so attractive!”, she cried as her pleasure built. She would play along with his game, she just needed to reach her nirvana.

**DonJuan1910:** Tell me you love me.

She was losing herself to his fantasy now, sucked into it and willing to play along because it made the experience more pleasurable. Whether it was for tokens or to kill the crippling loneliness she had felt, she no longer could distinguish the difference, the lines were too indelibly blurred.

“I love you!”, she breathed as her fingers continued their skillful dance, but the words felt foreign as they escaped her moist lips. She didn’t mean them, and yet, she did.

**DonJuan1910:** Please, my wife, tell me you belong to Erik!

Was that his name? Erik?

She couldn’t think, not when the apex of her pleasure was just on the horizon, she could almost taste it and she needed it so desperately. In her mind, she constructed a fantasy of his silhouette furiously pumping his fist, gripped tightly about his hardness, as he eagerly worked towards his own climax. It was a gorgeous imaginative invention to go with a nice name.

“I belong to Erik!”, she wailed as she jumped over the edge and into that deep, dark oblivion as stars flashed behind the screen of her eyelids and her body felt like it was imploding. Her climax seemed to catapult her through space and time, to a place where reality no longer existed, only bodily sensation.

Afterwards, her body lay, boneless and sated as she slowly fell back to earth. Between her legs lay a heartbeat and the warm evidence of her gratification. The entire experience was surreal, painted in hues of vibrant color and absurdity. She had needed this escape from reality. His strange wife roleplay was oddly satisfying, strangely comforting.

**DonJuan1910:** It was real, your pleasure.

“It’s always real,” she lied.

**DonJuan1910:** Not always. I have seen you act before.

She rolled onto her side and glanced into the camera. “You’re right, it’s different because you’re different.”

It was quiet on the screen for several minutes as her heart slowed down and her body began to cool.

And then he typed.

**DonJuan1910:** Oh, my sweet, good Christine. You do not know how happy you have made your Erik.

She sat straight up and read the message several times. When had she told him her name? Did she err at some point and slip it out? Did she have paperwork in sight? Had she been careless? Did he know her in her real life, what if he was a fellow student…or a professor?

He logged out of the room before she could ask and as she lay in bed later that night, she could not stop thinking about it.

The following evening, she returned home from school and sat before her unpowered computer. The grey screen stared back at her ominously and she refused to turn it on. It was time to get a new job, no more strangers on the internet or superficial digital relationships. He knew too much about her now, it was disconcerting. It wasn’t real, regardless of how it had felt.

She walked to her kitchen counter, poured the rest of a bottle of wine from the night before and sat upon her couch. Flipping through Netflix, she settled on some baking show to wind down for the night. The wine was having its desired effects, but she found herself struggling to stay awake. It was as though the heaviest fog of drowsiness had rolled into her apartment and was carrying her away with it upon its dense cloud. The last thing she remembered was the impossible weight of her eyelids as she struggled to keep them open and she fell into the inky tarpit of sleep.

In her dreams she was carried by a dark shadow who murmured words of love in the sort of voice only the mind could create. It filled her ear like smoke and soothed her fretful slumber. The shadow rocked her like a child, kissed her on her brow and sang lullabies in her father’s native tongue.

The voice was so fantastical, she never wanted to wake.

When she did eventually open her eyes, it was like she was trying to pull her consciousness out of a vat of molasses. Heaviness soaked her bones as she tried to sit up but failed. Her body was undressed and stretched upon a bed, the air was cool and the room…it was unfamiliar.

_‘Oh God…’_ , she realized. Her hands here bound to the bed.

There was movement from the corner of her eye and there stood a black-masked skeleton wearing a dark silk robe…not a skeleton, a man. He looked at her quizzically, cocking his head to the side, his yellow eyes shone bright in the dim light of the room.

“My wife is awake.”, he purred with a contented sigh.

The realization fell into her like a piano falling from the sky, this was DonJuan1910. Her mouth opened like a fish struggling to breathe as she pitifully tried to issue a scream, but her body refused to listen.

“Are you not pleased to see your husband?”, he tsked, “After all I have done for you!”

“Please, let me go.”, she managed to croak out.

“You do not understand.”, he strolled to the bed and stood before her, his large erection was pointing through the slit of his robe like a threat. “Everyone was trying to interfere with our love. Those pesky men on their computers…that ridiculous boy you were seeing…I took care of them. I! I! I! Everything was for us!”

Raoul…the followers who seemed to drop from the face of the earth….Oh….Oh…The horror!

The air left her lungs as she understood the implications of it all. She was so terrified to move, to scream, to say anything that would warrant his wrath.

Frigid hands reached out and skirted along her body in much the same way hers had the previous night. “So soft, so warm…”, he murmured. “It will be such an improvement to do this together, yes?”, he asked as he removed his robe and straddled her, his erection pressing into her lower belly like the hard muzzle of a gun. “Nobody will ever take you away from me, for I love you so. You will always belong to Erik.”

She felt like she was paralyzed, the moment was too terrifying, and his voice too hypnotic.

He leaned his face towards hers, his glowing gaze piercing into hers. “Now, my good, living wife…Tell Erik how much you love his face.”

When he removed the mask and she finally saw what he looked like for the first time, Christine understood one universal truth: The world was never going to see her again.


End file.
